Yellow Eyed Penguin Conservation

Yellow Eyed Penguins

We financially fund this project of many years to assist the local
population of yellow eyed penguins viewed by our customers. This has
been extremely successful with the population slowly growing. The
project is one of only two funded and managed by commercial operators.
Others are funded by government and other organisations such as the Yellow Eyed Penguin Trust.

Elm Wildlife Tours is pleased to work along side conservation
aware land owners towards the preservation of Yellow Eyed Penguins,
which are considered to be the world's rarest penguin species, with a
little over 5000 remaining in the world.
In the effort to save the Yellow Eyed Penguin, we have carried out
extensive habitat planting, construction of nest sites and predator
control, all of which are crucial to the survival of the penguins.

Each year, after the tourism season slows down, our guides, and
local land owners, David and Alan have time to go about the tasks needed
for the preservation of these rare birds. Plants propagated by our
guides, donated by local farmers and others are used for the
revegetation of new areas to be used by the penguins for breeding.

Yellow Eyed Penguins are very shy and rather anti social towards
the other penguins, apart from their partner when in their breeding
territory. As a coastal forest dwelling specie the vegetation provided
gives the penguins the important privacy they require when it comes to
breeding. If they can't hide they won't breed, it's as simple as that.

Another very important task is the control of introduced mammalian
predators that prey on the penguin chicks during the breeding season.
The local farmer, David is expert in carrying out this task. He runs
trap lines that he checks every few days, and shoots those that he sees.
The main predators that we are trying to control are mustilids, the
stoat and ferret, and also feral cats, all of which prey upon chicks.
Dogs are a problem for adult birds.

Blue Penguins

An unexpected bonus was discovered by some university students
carrying out research on the blue penguins in 2004, the population for
these tiny penguins was increasing, due most likely to the predator
control being carried out by Dave.
Other indirect beneficiary's of the conservation efforts
are the Hooker sea lions resident on the tour beach.

Hooker's Sea lions

Elm Wildlife tours were the instigators of, and provided the finance for the set up the New Zealand Sea Lion Trust
in an effort to create an organisation which could attract funding to
enable more research to be conducted on this threatened species.